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In the focus REGULATIONS

(фото: http://justitia-int.org/) Legal assistance
Legal assistance is an issue that has an important
this public authority. The determination or the es-
tablishment of a single public authority to run the part in the provisions of the new Law on General
procedure does not affect the order of the compe- Administrative Procedure, whereby every public au-
tence of the public authorities or the right of the thority is obliged electronically to ask for legal as-
parties to communicate directly with the compe- sistance when it needs facts, documents or other
tent public authority. The law introduces an obli- evidence possessed by another authority which due
gation of the public authority that is competent to to legal reasons cannot conduct the required admin-
run the procedure, also to advise the applicant in istrative action by itself.
the same way as this is done by the competent pub-
lic authority and to give to the party, or to make The introduction of the electronic communication
available all information that are required for the will largely simplify the procedure, it will reduce the
administrative action that it requires. This also costs for delivery and will contribute for acceleration
includes means and conditions for access to the of the procedure. The public authority that assis-
public registers and databases, and means of legal tance has been requested from, on the other hand,
remedies against some administrative action; to re- is obliged to act on the request without delay, and
ceive requests for issuance of administrative acts, not later than seven days from the day of reception
or for performance of other required administra- of the application, and to electronically deliver the
tive actions, as well as all other submissions, and requested facts, documents, or other evidence. If the
to send them to the competent public authority; to public authority that assistance has been requested
communicate with the parties during the proce- from, does not act within this deadline, the author-
dure for all procedural demands, and to notify the ity that requested the legal assistance can refer to an
parties for each administrative act or action, issued authority competent for the performance of inspec-
by the competent authority. The duties, that is, the tion supervision of the public authority. In an event
services by the public authority must be provided when the provision of legal assistance between the
directly in the premises of the public authority that state authorities and the local self-administration
runs the procedure, as well as by mail or electroni- authorities requires special costs, the legal assis-
cally if it is not a matter of services that require tance is provided when the authority that requests
immediate presence of the party. the assistance will provide the required assets. The
public authority terminates the current procedure
Such a solution is expected to simplify the proce- until the required legal assistance is provided.
dure, to accelerate it, and to make it more effective.
The decision is a result of the located problems, Electronic communication
such as the slow action, however also the problem The electronic way of communication is intro-
of submission of incomplete and formal requests,
usually only to comply with a specific deadline, as duced also in article 37 of the Law on General Ad-
well as the practice after submission of such a re- ministrative Procedure where it is indicated that
quest to start a process of correspondence and sub- the communication between the public authorities
missions between the authority and the application and the parties can take place in writing, orally or
for the purpose of delivery of a specific evidence or electronically. Thereby the acts in the administra-
information. tive procedure in electronic form can be delivered to
the party or to its representative only in cases when
they previously agreed on this form of communica-
tion. The agreement can be limited to specific public
authorities, procedures, and acts. With such a solu-
tion the manner of communication is left to the dis-
position of the parties. However, in accordance with
article 3 of this article, compulsory electronic com-
munication has been introduced between the public
authorities.

The analyzed provisions of the Law on General
Administrative Procedure are expected to bear posi-
tive results both for the citizens and for the legal
entities, thereby also for the business sector in the
realization of the rights and the legal interests.

July-August 2016 71